


The Emperor's Curve

by yuletidefairy



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Boarding School, Families of Choice, Gen, Leadership, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletidefairy/pseuds/yuletidefairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Barrayaran Political Science Thesis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Emperor's Curve

"Antonopoulos."

Not a Vor name. Greekie, by the sound of it. Gregor was a little surprised that a boy with that name had been allowed into his class. It was only recently that non-Vor had even been allowed into the Academy Preparatory. Tante Cordelia's hand at work, maybe? Through the Lord Regent Vorkosigan, of course.

"Here," said the boy.

"Baikov," the instructor called.

Now, there was a name that should have a Vor in front of it--or could, at least. Gregor craned his neck to see who responded, but he couldn't tell from looking whether the dark-haired boy was a little lordling or a commoner. In the school uniform, there were no clues to class. Tante Cordelia would have told him that the class divisions were a mass hallucination on the part of all Barrayarans anyway: all citizens should be equal, to her way of thinking.

"Barra," said the instructor.

It was a name that could not have been anything except Vor. The cleverer boys should have realized already. Even if they didn't recognize Gregor by sight after his recent haircut to military requirements, they should have noticed the ImpSec guards in their black uniforms with Horus eyes on their collars, stationed in the towers at the entrance, in the halls, in the East dormitory, in this classroom.

The instructor's glance flicked from the attendance list directly to Gregor. Gregor said, as mildly as he could, "Present."

The fellow students of his not already watching him turned in their seats. Gregor remained impassive: he had been trained neither to fidget nor to preen under scrutiny.

"Broussard," the instructor barked at them all.

"Present," the boy said rapidly, straightening in his chair.

The rest of the class returned their attention to the instructor, somewhat more reluctantly.

That was as much acknowledgement as the instructor in mathematics gave Gregor: to treat him like the other boys and cow the other boys into doing the same. Gregor didn't know whether to be grateful or not. On the one hand, he wanted no hint of favoritism, no implication that he couldn't achieve what he ought without being graded on _the Emperor's curve_ \--a phrase he'd already overheard another student use after the chemistry instructor fawned over him--but at the same time, the mathematics instructor's approach seemed to lack respect.

Aral, the Lord Regent Vorkosigan, showed Gregor respect and affection under different names, different hats. Aral called him Gregor; Lord Regent Vorkosigan called him Sire. Tante Cordelia, though, was only Tante Cordelia, singular and unified in her beliefs. "My respect for your office," she'd said, "is what I think it is due, and is a little different from the respect for your office your countrymen have: I think there is much to be respected in the burden of responsibility, but not the ostentation. My respect for you as a human being takes into account that you are still growing. You have not grown into an adult, not have you entirely grown into your office. I respect you as a twelve-year-old boy. A boy who was done very well for his age and faced a great deal more loss and hardship than anyone should have to, but a boy. You are a boy, and I am a grown woman, and while you will someday be responsible for the world, I am presently responsible for you. So, no, I do not think I will call you 'Sire' just yet, Gregor." It was humbling; yet at the same time Gregor couldn't get over the feeling that he never really wanted Tante Cordelia to give up his name and call him Sire.

But Gregor did not think the mathematics instructor had reasoned his approach so thoroughly, so Gregor worried.

The literature instructor was no better: he had acknowledged Gregor with what seemed like an _apology_ to the other students, noting that they would not have had the extra subject to study if they had not had the Emperor amongst them, requiring their cultural cultivation. Gregor quietly seethed, for he knew otherwise. It was not an accident that literature had been included in the curriculum for the first time the same year as Gregor's entry into the Academy Preparatory, but it was to be a permanent addition, per Tante Cordelia's slow battle to bring educational reforms to the established institutions of Barrayar.

"It's perfectly appropriate," she'd told Aral. "A great number of the classics revolve around warriors. Take the Iliad, for instance."

"Oh, now you want us to teach a Greek work," said Aral, in devil's advocate mode.

"Not necessarily in Greek," said Tante Cordelia, "though that is a thought..."

Gregor could have read it in Greek. He could read Greek, and French, and half a dozen languages common in the near Nexus. He didn't imagine he'd be advertising that fact in the literature class, though, as it would seem unnecessarily prideful. Unless, perhaps, he managed to convince his scholastic peers that their workload wasn't so terribly increased by a little literature--not compared to his? He turned it over in his mind, a potential gambit to persuade his fellow students to see him as a _fellow student._

But did he want that?

At least it wasn't as bad as in combat training class, but nothing could be. The Emperor's curve was in full and sanctioned effect there, as Gregor could not be put in any real danger.

Older students sometimes earned the luxury of a private room. Freshmen lived in suites of six students. A suite consisted of a room with bunks on three walls, and on the fourth, a row of small closets and a small lavatory. There were foldable desks which fit under the bunks. A typical suite was constantly too crowded, too full of sweat and loose papers and uncleaned boots.

Not so Gregor's suite, but then, he didn't have to share it with five other twelve-year-old boys. He shared it with two of his personal armsmen and three ImpSec officers.

On that first night, Gregor did homework until he could reliably count on the Lord Regent being finished conducting the business of government at the palace, which was very late indeed--past lights-out, in fact, but one of the perquisites of being Emperor that Gregor did not mind abusing was setting his own bedtime. (He might change his mind later, after slogging through classes on short hours, but he wouldn't need to do this very often--he hoped.)

Then Gregor tucked the 'reader with _Beowulf_ away and told his ImpSec guards, "I wish to make a comm call to my Regent."

"Of course, Sire," said the guard, and set up the portable secure comm unit. He placed the call, and Gregor's armsmen went to the door. The ImpSec guard looked up.

"Privately," Gregor said; his armsmen were used to that, but the ImpSec guards hadn't been with Gregor long enough to know.

All of the guards filed out into the hall, and Gregor shut the door and locked it. He sat down at the comm unit and keyed it up, and Aral was waiting there for him. "Hello, Gregor," said Aral. He looked piercingly at Gregor, and said, "How was your first day?"

"Fine, thank you," Gregor said calmly, since Aral had been kind enough not to ask _Are you all right?_ "Is Tante Cordelia there?"

Aral's eyebrow went up, but he only said, "Just a moment."

Gregor folded his hands in his lap and waited patiently until Tante Cordelia appeared on the screen. "You called?" she asked, warmly, and Gregor very much wished she could reach through the screen and embrace him. "How are you?"

Gregor tried to keep his voice level as he said, "Is it absolutely necessary that I study here?"

"That bad?" Tante Cordelia said, sounding amused and sympathetic all at once. "Personally, I was never fond of the idea, but Aral made some significant arguments about gaining the respect of your warrior caste with nominal participation. It will be very difficult for you to be an effective Emperor without the respect of the troops you will have to command."

So the short answer was no, not _absolutely_ necessary. And the long answer was a qualified, but it would be a very bad idea _not_ to. Gregor had known that, of course, but he appreciated the way Tante Cordelia laid things out. He looked down at his hands.

"Gregor," Tante Cordelia said with infinite gentleness, "do you want to be Emperor?"

Gregor did not think anyone had ever asked him this before. He had been Emperor since he was five years old, and had known that he would be for a long time before that--the news that his father had died, and its import, was so very vague memory that it seemed that he had _always_ known. He could still clearly remember standing at attention at Ezar's deathbed, his mother's hand on his shoulder, her skirts at his back (one of his few distinct memories of her), and all the old men coming to kneel before him and put their hands between his, and Tante Cordelia--she hadn't been his Tante yet then, but he had known her as Lady Vorkosigan, his mother's friend, whom Droushie had gone to serve. He had already had an inkling that Lady Vorkosigan did not act like other ladies or countesses or even ordinary women, but that had been crystalized when she knelt down and gave him her allegiance like all of the men, as if she didn't even realize it wasn't her place to do so.

"I don't know," Gregor said. He couldn't quite find it in him to imagine _not_ being Emperor, it was a concept so antithetical to his existence to date. And yet--and yet-- There was a bubbling notion of _freedom_ , but also the bleak fate of Barrayar, if he abandoned it. "I can't," he said finally. "It would be chaos."

"To an extent," Tante Cordelia said. "What sort of chaos and the result of it is debatable, and if you want to talk about it, I think it's worth going through the likely consequences of your possible choices in detail."

Gregor opened his mouth briefly, and shut it again, determined to keep his composure until he knew what he wanted to say. Only Tante Cordelia. Only Tante Cordelia would dream of having this conversation with him. From anyone else, it would have smacked of some subtle treason, but Tante Cordelia was so clearly speaking in _his_ interest that it couldn't possibly be. And yet--she had spoken of the distinction between his office and his person, different hats, like her husband's, and Gregor wondered if it were possible for her to be loyal to Gregor-the-boy and treasonous to Gregor-the-Emperor.

But with the question asked--Gregor did not think he could put it out of his mind without turning it over, and there was no one but Tante Cordelia whom he would trust to speak of it with him. (He could just picture Aral going stone-faced Lord Regent at the whisper of the thought. No.)

"Tell me," Gregor said, with a touch of unintended imperial command, but Tante Cordelia seemed not to notice.

"In the first place," Tante Cordelia said briskly, "you are not, at present, legally empowered to abdicate: you can't do it until you've reached your majority. If you were to be simply illegally spirited off the planet--which, you may recall, I managed for myself, although I wasn't of such an exalted position as you are--then Aral would be accused of a power grab, regardless of what messages you left concerning your wishes, and then, depending on whether or not he could hold power, which might or might not be what he would choose, and depending who took power and how if he did not, there might be search expeditions mounted for you, or assassins sent after you, or, and I consider this a very remote possibility, you might be left alone." She paused for breath. "Do you want to consider that further, or should we move on to the possibility of abdication at majority?"

Gregor barely suppressed a gulp. Tante Cordelia had not really even gone into what would happen to Barrayar, except to say how it would impact how he was hunted. "No," he said. "Tell me about if I wait."

"With this much notice, we can almost certainly find you someone to abdicate in favor _of_ ," Cordelia mused. "Aral's apparently the obvious genetic successor, and competent, and you might even be able to talk him into it, although I doubt it. There might be a more distant Vor cousin we can turn up, though there's still the question of competency, or it might even be worthwhile to start some sort of screening program to find royal bastards. Which brings us back to the legitimacy issue: you're the only person your empire is likely to accept wholeheartedly as fulfilling the dynastic requirements of your system of government. Any alternative is going to be accepted half-heartedly, at best. On the bright side, there's really no need for you to stay at school there if you're planning to abdicate on your first day," she offered.

"Tell me about the consequences of half-hearted acceptance," Gregor said. This was very, very different he had ever imagined: all he could think was _revolt_ and _bloodshed_ and _death_. Did Tante Cordelia not think those things would happen? Was she trying to spare him contemplating them?

"There would be assassination attempts, of course," Tante Cordelia said pragmatically, blowing through Gregor's attempts to plumb her intentions. "Likely more frequent than the ones you and Aral face, and if your successor had any disloyalty from ImpSec, that would very rapidly become a bigger problem." Gregor knew what she meant: for the Emperor to die, all that must happen is that ImpSec stand aside. "Any Vor lord who felt he had a better genetic claim than your chosen successor might try to mount a Pretendership, but the Pretendership might become real, or lead to a series of coups by various claimants. Once anyone wrested power from your successor, it would be unlikely he could get it back. All of this would involve a great deal of death, both in battle and in executions of the disempowered's followers."

It was as he'd thought. There would be too much violence if he stepped down. He couldn't step down--no one would aid him, knowing what would follow. To rule the empire was Gregor's inescapable fate.

"The followers," Tante Cordelia added, her tone shifting, "or, more precisely, the loyalty ethos, that's part of the problem. I mean, it's an admirable personal trait but you've managed to build it into a system of government. Ordinary Barrayarans are so loyal to their liege-lords that I don't think they grasp how much better off they'd be if they elected the best leaders rather than trying to mold boys of particular families into leaders. It would be much easier to find you a successor if we had the whole population to find leadership talent in rather than only those of certain bloodlines--"

Gregor knew Tante Cordelia had grown up under a democratic planetary government, of course, but she had never before voiced to him the idea of a democratic Barrayar to him. The class system might be a mass delusion, but its effects were real: what _she_ was talking about was the delusion. Something must have shown on Gregor's face, for she broke off and laughed.

"Aral would never back me on that one," Tante Cordelia said, "at least--not as long as you are Emperor. He swore he'd preserve your full power until you could carry it yourself. If you declared a wish to abdicate, he might feel differently. Imagine if you reached majority and told the empire that you wished to abdicated in favor of the people of Barrayar, and presented a proposal for a method of elections!"

"I don't think so," Gregor said faintly.

"No?" Tante Cordelia asked, sounding disappointed.

"Even if the Council of Counts passed such a proposal into law," Gregor said, though that was an impossibility on its own, "an elected leader would have even less legitimacy than anyone I specifically named as my successor. It would be all of those things you said about assassination attempts and coups and Pretenderships, except _worse._ "

"Certainly Barrayaran attitudes would have to change more than is likely in a half dozen years," Tante Cordelia admitted, "in order for an elected leader to be fully recognized as legitimate. But it's your choice we're discussing. Very well, we'll set that option aside. There is a chance that if we were very lucky about who fits the bloodline requirements, we might find you a successor who could hold power--who knew how to fend off political and physical attacks, how to stop a coup, how to unite people in loyalty to himself, and how to lead them well."

Gregor thought she might be talking about Aral, even though she had said and Gregor already knew that Aral very emphatically did not want the job. But he could _do_ the job. (And as for his successor, Miles... well, Miles was only seven, it was unfair to attempt to guess how he would mature.)

"But Gregor," Tante Cordelia added, "it would be worth it to look for such a person, if you don't feel you are or will be competent to do all of those things, too. As Emperor, you'll have to face attempts to dethrone you, attempts to sway and control you, attempts to assassinate you--and when you're not busy fending that off, you will actually have to rule three planets. You'll have to find ways to be fair to people who all want different things, and you'll have to protect them from themselves, and each other, and nations beyond Barrayar. If you don't think you _can_ do those things, if you don't think you'll be capable, it might be kinder to your empire to name another leader than to take the crown in name and then neglect your people."

With a strange jolt, Gregor realized that Tante Cordelia was not speaking purely in hypotheticals. To Gregor, it had been a fantasy, because he had been certain that there was no circumstance under which any of what she described would be _allowed_ to come true. But there was one circumstance: if Gregor told her _I can't, it will break me, I don't have it in me_ , she would help him shed his burden.

He could say that to her, and she would help him.

But it would be a lie, and Gregor knew it.

"I am capable," he said slowly, then amended, "or, not yet, but I will be: with your help, and the Lord Regent's, and Captain Illyan's, and everyone else who has had and will have a hand in _molding_ me into a leader. And knowing that--knowing that I will be competent, and that because of my breeding I do have the best chance of keeping Barrayar at peace with itself--I cannot refuse. I am Emperor. That is my choice."

Tante Cordelia's face looked very bright, eyes shining above a mouth carved in solemnity as if she were trying hard not to break into a grin. It was a fierce combination of joy and pride; Gregor had seen her wear it when Miles had found the legs to walk, and to run, and to keep going with casts on both calves. She said, bowing her head slightly, "Sire."

"No," said Gregor. "Not you. One with such a hand in molding the Emperor surely shouldn't have to--no. You are my Tante Cordelia and I am your Gregor."

And then Tante Cordelia did grin. "Always."

Gregor finished the call, let his guards back in, and lay down to sleep. In the morning when he woke up, he thought, _I am Emperor. I chose it._ He went to his classes, straight-backed and proud.


End file.
